How to decide on DVD burner? 1, 2, 3 or it depends

[gazzerdc]

Okay, I've checked out the LaCie d2 and the Sony 810/UL. I've seen some other burners on the shopping dot net dot coms.

As an external drive, does anyone have any advice as to which burner to get?

I have to dub some old VCR tapes to DVD. I purchased my G4 in 2002 and have only been moderately successful in burning DVDs. I gave up because it took 1) all night to do; 2) I had to separate the 2hour/10 minute tapes into TWO DVDs with Act one and Act two by first running it through iMOVIE, then dubbing and 3) the computer went to sleep in the middle of a burn and my DVD ended up looking like an out-of-sync japanese 50s scifi film (It was kind of funny actually). I even looked at a combo retail Philips VCR/DVD for $289 at Best Buy that looked good for this purpose...wondering if I'd be just better off going this route vs. hooking up the DVD to the VCR or Camera etc.

So, now we have this great new technology. DUALs and I'm ready. BUT...and there is always a BUT...I see that the two systems I noted above require me to use just DUAL DVDS. Would that be right? I have three boxes of 4.2g DVDS waiting to be used now. You mean I can't burn these using the Dual system? It's not either/or? Is there a dual burner that allows you to choose between the old 4.xg and the new 8.xg? Meaning, if i want to just burn an hour's worth of info, I use the old DVDs...If I need three hours or more, I use the new DVDs.


And finally, since the story began using iDVD, would I be better off:
1. buying TOAST 7 and burning these old DVDs (which sort of now look like Olympic medals) in two parts....is TOAST simpler than iDVD and iMOVIE? Or faster?

2. Or, just getting the retail VCR/DVD combo.

3. Or, bite the bullet and get the dual.

I'm currently running 10.3.9, have a separate 60g hard drive installed and 1.5g of memory.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Satcomer]

Yes, Toast is a bit better than the built in ability of OS X. Look around on the net for the best price. now you have to know that encoding VCR to DVD will take a while. So you have to remember to turn off the Energy Saving System Preferences while doing the encoding. When I did mine, I already had an EyeTV200 and found this out the hard way, just like you. Also, you may want to get a faster superdrive like the one I got from OWC.

 

[camgangrel21]

Just a FYI you can get a Lite ON DL DVD bruner at walmart and it will work. and it will only cost $75.00. As for a DL DVD bruner that can brun SL DVD disk. Hell yes they all can. Other wise the drive maker would sill be pushing the SL bruners at or below the $100.00 mark. They would love to have, been able to price the DL burners at $300.00 or higher.

 

[gazzerdc]

Just a FYI you can get a Lite ON DL DVD bruner at walmart and it will work. and it will only cost $75.00. As for a DL DVD bruner that can brun SL DVD disk. Hell yes they all can. Other wise the drive maker would sill be pushing the SL bruners at or below the $100.00 mark. They would love to have, been able to price the DL burners at $300.00 or higher.

I haven't a clue what you are trying to say. The spelling and syntax is so terrible that it is impossible to decipher. Thanks for the attempt to answer, though.

 

[ra3ndy]

I haven't a clue what you are trying to say. The spelling and syntax is so terrible that it is impossible to decipher. Thanks for the attempt to answer, though.

I think what he's trying to say is that your 4.7 gb discs WILL work in a Dual Layer Burner.

And for the time/effort/money involved, I'd really recommend the combo VCR to DVD recorder. At least that way, you don't have to worry about moving all that hardware over and reconfiguring if you decide to upgrade or if (god forbid) your Mac dies.

The only time I recommend using your computer for this is when you need to edit the video, compress it differently, or intend to store an extra copy on your hard drive.